


Harmony in the Overpass

by frumious_bandersnatch



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU: Lucifer won, Addendum: sucks does not even begin to describe Sam Winchester at this point in time, Correction: Sam really sucks, Gen, Insanity, Medical Care, Post-Apocalypse, Sam kinda sucks, True Vessels, Vessel bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-12 15:00:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 14,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29137479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frumious_bandersnatch/pseuds/frumious_bandersnatch
Summary: It’s one word, now. SamandLucifer. Together. Eternal.
Relationships: Sam Winchester & Lucifer
Comments: 30
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [InHisImage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InHisImage/gifts).



The leaf litter crunched under their shoes, the smell of forest- decay and life and blood and sap, whirling in on itself into something entirely new and unique and different every square mile because it wasn’t the same trees or the same death or the same mushrooms and scavengers- filling their nose. Sometimes he was thankful for their new shared senses. Not in the forest. Not when he saw in three hundred and sixty degrees, above and below and inside, not when he could feel the heartbeats of the nest of voles, could feel the electric pulses from each clump of lichen, hear the trees shift and groan in their own slow language. Hear and smell and taste and feel everything.

“You’ll get used to it. That’s why we’re out here.” His voice, his lips, his air, not his words.

What’s Sam’s is Lucifer’s is Lucifer’s is Sam’s until it’s not. In and within and through him; everything shared, the joy and the despair, the faith and the betrayal, the pain and suffering and agony.

_ I’m sorry. _

Sam preferred directed thought to talking. That seemed to please Lucifer, it gave them at least one distinction.

“Don’t.” Needless apologies. Lucifer didn’t like them. He felt Sam flinch and he heaved a long sigh, smoothing his hands over the front of his suit.

White. It suited Sam. It suited him, the Lightbringer, brightest of all of them even after the fall.

The suit shone like pearl in the dappled afternoon light, sun bearing down through the trees.

It was just on the cusp of fall, so there was still green, still green leaves. Green and brown and red and orange and yellow, like colored pieces of plastic film over a spotlight.

There was asphalt underfoot. Cracked, broken up by new growth. That and any other vestiges of what had been had easily been taken over by nature. Made Sam wonder how long it had been. Since he’d said yes, since the apocalypse, since they’d ripped Michael out of Dean (Sam was adamant they didn’t kill his brother, so fucking determined that Lucifer indulged him) and tore the grace out of his celestial body and left him to die. Watched him die. The last time Sam had seen another human.

Sam didn’t like thinking about that.

“Century? Century and a half? Not long.” Lucifer shrugged, crouching down to look at a small rabbit. Domesticated stock, but it wasn’t like there were any pet stores or humans to look after it, and the breed seemed to be doing just fine in the hundreds of generations that had passed.

Lucifer scratched lazily in between its ears.

He and Sam apparently had very different definitions of ‘not long’. Sam suddenly had an image of his mind; cheesy halloween flick where the spell of some thousand year old witch is broken and she crumbles to dust. Would that be him without Lucifer riding his bones?

The archangel laughed. Loud, rancorous, echoing among the trees. The rabbit bolted. “It’s not,” He hummed. “That I’m preventing you from aging and your body needs to catch up, amusing though that would be. It’s that your body is… not needing to expend the energy. Not falling prey to entropy simply because it can’t, because it’s me. But if you’d like to age a couple decades I can find something else to hold me for a little while.”

Sam chuckled himself, shaking his head in his mind’s eye.  _ I think I’ll be alright. I’d rather be 27 on the outside than 45, right? _

Lucifer hummed. “I’d rather that too. We look good.” He paused. “We’d look good regardless, but I’m rather attached to how it is now, aren’t you?”

Sam nodded.  _ But… something else to hold you? Are there people? _

“People…” Lucifer’s gaze grew distant, and Sam’s with him, scouring the earth in a heartbeat. “Huh. Still a few. Honestly thought I’d wiped out the whole lot.”

_ Don’t _ -

“Don’t get your panties in a bunch, I’ll leave them be. But none of them strong enough to hold me, unless-“

“No.” Sam spoke aloud that time, cutting Lucifer off. “Not him. You’re not allowed.”

Lucifer’s lips curled up in an indulgent smile at ‘allowed’. Even with everything shared, there was no denying who did the ‘allowing’ in the relationship.

“All-right, Sam. We’ll leave him be.” Lucifer said slowly, tone soft and placating. “Due for a visit, aren’t we?” 

Sam tensed, and it was all him.

Tugging an archangel out of a vessel was a messy process. Severing the bonds, claws in their wings and all over, ripping and tearing and nothing to ease the way-

Accidents happened.

Sam saw what had happened to Raphael’s vessel. And they had left him  _ willingly _ -

He was thankful Dean was alive, at the very least.

Grateful he could speak.

Could speak if he wasn’t howling mad, if the demons assigned as his carers knew their way around enough magic to be able to ease the pain in his fractured soul.

_ Maybe tomorrow. _

“Overdue for a visit. He’s only alive because you want him to be, he’s only breathing because I’m constantly threading pieces of my grace into his soul. Keeping him stable. You wanted a pet, Sam, you have to take care of it.”

_ He’s not-  _ Sam saw the parallels. The ‘boy asks for a puppy for Christmas, refuses to walk it, the poor thing wastes away’. He saw it, he refused to equate it to what was going on right now because Dean was a person. If Sam searched desperately enough in his trapped gaze, he swore he could see thought.

Lucifer saw different parallels. A story echoing, echoing in on itself down through the ages forever and ever. One brother has to kill the other. He’d done his part. Now it was Sam’s turn.

And maybe he coddled the boy. Maybe he should have just let it be over and done with, click his fingers, no more Dean.

Sam deserved to be coddled, though. So he let it persist. 

“We’ll keep walking. We’ll fly. Tonight, though.” Lucifer nodded. “Supervised visit?”

Sam closed his eyes, throat twitching and eyes stinging and lower lip quivering. “Yeah.”

“Alright, buddy.”

They walked. On through the forest, along a barely there trail up a mountain. It was cold. Lucifer was colder, so Sam didn’t notice the biting chill in the air. Or, at least, it didn’t bother him all that much. 

They sat- perched on a rocky outcropping and watched the sun as it sank in the sky. They could see further, better than any human, clearer than was comprehensible.

Lucifer pointed out stars he’d had a hand in making. They could have devoted months to that task alone.

They flew. 

Normally, an angel’s flight, it’s a blink. An instant, a wave of light and intent reaching its destination in next to no time.

But that doesn’t mean Lucifer and Sam couldn’t spread their wings- gold and pink and white and red just like the sunset that had coated their skin and their suit with a flushed opalescent filter.

They were tarnished. Wounded, aching, constantly.

But so fucking beautiful.

Together, as one, they stepped off of the outcropping, wings snapping out to catch the air and flapping powerfully.

And Sam was crowing with joy and laughter and exhilaration, guiding them just as much as Lucifer was.

They were never more in sync than when flying, now. It had taken a lot of learning on Sam’s part, a lot of crash landings, but now-

It wasn’t even shared control. It was one being.

SamandLucifer laughed and turned out towards the sea to watch the fading sun gild the waves. To dip a wing and drift in lazy circles, to simply  _ be. _

And how magnificent they were, in  _ being _ .


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where’s Sam?

No one liked what had been lovingly coined as ‘baby-sitting duty’. Not really. Not like there was much to do under the new regime, because the crossroads were closed: so it was essentially either torture, being tortured, personal service to Lucifer (personal errand-boy that had to show up within milliseconds of an arbitrary limit when the archangel called. High turnover rate for that one), or being on rotation to look after the elder Winchester.

Asmodeus didn’t mind. He was one demon that hadn’t been all that impacted by either Winchester (losing Azazel wasn’t any skin off his teeth) and thus didn’t have the same… wrath that got some demons eager to abuse their privilege smote in the most terrible of ways, most often with Sam himself at the helm.

He liked being able to make himself useful. Get back in his father’s good graces, be a good little subject, and all.

Because if anything were to… happen, at this point? Well, there was no question on who would be next in line.

And sure, sure, no one liked playing a sycophant. But with Lucifer there wasn’t much of a choice.

“Shh, sh- that’s it. Jus’ me.” He hummed as he took off his suit jacket, so much like Lucifer’s own, and maybe it was a little obvious- imitation was the best form of flattery. He hung it by the door and adjusted his vest, before he slowly rolled up his sleeves.

Hard to believe the man lying in the bed across from him nearly derailed the apocalypse.

Grunting, nostrils flaring as he struggled to move himself back, eyes cloudy and panicked and he always was so fussy when he thought it was someone new.

“Gh- Chris’so,” 

Asmodeus flinched. Apparently the garbled approximation of the lord’s name was close enough to have his essence cringing back. Little shit.

It took effort to keep his eyes from shuttering yellow; he’d learned first hand that that was something that got the Winchester fighting, screaming, yelling.

Made him wonder what in the Sam Hill his brother had done to the boys. Made him smirk to himself the first few times it had happened.

“Let’s be friendly, now.” He called, smoothing his hands over the front of his chest as he strutted over. 

He was surprised Dean wasn’t screaming. Looked like it was gonna be a good day. Because he could see the cracks and splinters in his soul. Figured that anyone else woulda gone insane.

More insane, anyways.

Dean didn’t move much, didn’t often get up off that bed. Muscles all but atrophied from lack of use, definition lost, more lines in his face despite the relative stasis he was kept in. Needed a catheter, but thankfully the other end of things was well taken care of by Asmodeus’ due-diligence and attention.

There were more demeaning things than helping a grown man walk to the bathroom.

He was tube-fed- gastric tube, didn’t need to run it through the nose, and sometimes if it was a good day he could be cajoled into eating something more solid.

Sometimes he was lucid. Could carry a conversation through the pain.

Some days there was no helping him, only morphine and IV bags and the most interesting mix of modern medicine and witchcraft to try and alleviate what could be alleviated. Spiritual pain was tricky.

Other times it was a lot like Michael. Asmodeus figured it hadn’t been as clean a split as Lucifer had intended, left bits and bobs of grace weaved in Dean’s soul, pieces of archangel.

Thank god that wasn’t the dominant ‘personality’. Asmodeus could only suffer through being called vermin so many times before he snapped.

“How we feelin’, today?” He asked as he sat himself down next to the man, lifted him into a sitting position and shifted the pillows to accommodate.

Dean swallowed thickly, blinking rapidly as his chest shuddered.

Asmodeus wondered what he was thinking, sometimes. Could see thoughts fighting around in his head when he looked into those so often dull emerald eyes. He imagined it wasn’t anything good.

Hunter, Michael’s sword, stuck in one room for the past hundred or so some-odd years, barely moving, fed through a pump attached to his middle, connected to an IV bag. Not even getting out of bed ‘cept to shit or sometimes when LuciferandSam came in.

They were coming in less.

He wondered if Dean could tell.

“S’Sam?”

He didn’t have to wonder too hard on that last question. Asmodeus sighed. “Not today, I’m afraid, I know you’re missin’ him from last month, huh? I’m sure Lucifer’s busy, s’all. You know your brother cares about you.”

Dean’s head flopped to the side and his lower lip quivered, face twisting up in pain and grief.

“Yeah, he does.” Asmodeus shook his head, nudging Dean’s head back up to rest where it had been. Doubted Dean’d be able to lift it on his own.

Dean gave a grateful sort of noise that confirmed that and shifted a little, brow furrowed as Asmodeus placed a hand on his thigh.

“Think we can manage some water today? Maybe somethin’ to eat?” Asmodeus tried, cocking his head to the side.

“Water.” Dean finally croaked after five minutes, letting out a shuddering breath.

“Aight. Water it is.” And then Asmodeus was patting him on the side, reaching up to fondly ruffle his hair as he stepped away.

“Gon’ try and figure out what we can do about you talkin’. See if we can get your thoughts outta your head, thinking of some charm to help you vocalize without needin’ to talk. How’d you like that?”

_ PleasepleasepleaseAsmodeuslemmetalkdontleavemealoneagainsodarkpleasehurtsplease-  _ Dean whimpered.

They sat. Asmodeus helped him sip at a cup of cold water, Dean braced against his chest.

Asmodeus talked to him, played with his hair, Dean responded if and when he could and basked in the somewhat human contact.

“When’s Sammy coming back?”

“...Any day now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do I like writing mindbreak and Insane!Winchesters too much?
> 
> ....Yeah, probably.


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world moves on. Nature always finds a way.

They held tea ceremonies in the remains of houses. Sat crosslegged on the floor just like you were supposed to, sipped slowly out of raku cups that hadn’t yet crumbled to dust.

Tea hot on their tongue, soothing, calming, made with what they could find, all over;  _ C. sinensis  _ and  _ Rubus idaeus  _ and  _ Tanacetum vulgare _ floating in water made hot with the barest touch, strained out, enjoyed.

Sam smiled, closing his eyes as he let the heat of the tea warm his hands through the hardened clay.

Lucifer gave him all the culture he’d missed before.

They walked up the twisted, rusted remains of the Eiffel Tower. They walked through the pyramids and catacombs at Giza, they stood at the top of the Victoria Falls and jumped down into the waters below.

They followed a red fox from the moment it was born until the moment the earth claimed it, and watched as it slipped away; fungus and insects and rot, and Sam slowly brushed his fingers over the bleached bone when it was done. And then they smiled.

Sam carded his fingers through their wings and straightened broken feathers and felt oil on the tips of his fingers and heard Lucifer purring and he was purring, too, and it was nice.

They swam in the Arctic, they swam in the tropics, they hiked over mountains.

_ Not today, not today, not today. _

Decades more of  _ not today _ .

“Sam, we have to.”

_ How many times do I need to tell you? I’m not up to it. _

“He’s only alive because of you. The least you could do-“

_ Is keep him alive. We’re doing that. I told you, I’m not up to it. Not today. But I’m not going to let him die. He’s my brother. I’m not going to let him die, how could you even suggest that? _

Lucifer wondered, idly, when he should put his foot down. It didn’t take all that much to keep Dean going, in the grand scheme of things. Didn’t take much to look in, either.

He didn’t look in often; he saw where Sam was coming from. Hard to look, hard to watch. He’d have to reward Asmodeus for sticking through with it for so long, at some point.

He never cared as much about the little bastard, never liked him as much, but somehow, he’d proved almost as loyal as Azazel.

It was nice to get your ego stroked like that. “Soon.”

_ Soon _ , Sam promised, not knowing yet if he meant it. He and Lucifer had different definitions of time, after all. Just this once his might have been longer.

Years passed. Days ticked by, glacial and at the speed of light all at once.

_ How many left? _

“Just ten. A little colony.” Lucifer hummed. “I don’t think they even speak English, anymore. Isn’t that neat?” Together and one and always, Lucifer wasn’t always sure how to talk to Sam anymore.

Maybe humans weren’t meant to be conscious for this long. Maybe this was why heaven was all memories.

_ Huh. I guess so. _ Sam seemed uninterested.

He used to like peeking in at the humans that remained. Now he wanted nothing to do with them. Only asked when Lucifer guided him into it, assuming he would want to know but had forgotten to inquire.

That little colony started developing tools. SamandLucifer nipped that in the bud. At least; nipped farming in the bud, because that was what got the planet into the mess it was now just barely recovered from in the first place.

The humans worshipped them, now. Lucifer liked that. They tuned in, from time to time, to the little prayers, flew in, from time to time, to take the offerings.

He kinda got why Dad liked this stuff, now.

Not only was it good for him- self image, ego, the little primitive paintings and statues and effigies and songs, but…

Nurturing from afar. Watching them grow and struggle and figure themselves out and find even footing in a new and better and braver world.

Dad had taste. He just got too greedy for it, at some point. Got greedy enough to cut off the nose to spite the face, to flood the world when they didn’t pray pretty enough and they didn’t act right.

Lucifer promised himself and Sam- promised themselves they wouldn’t be like that. That they’d tempered the wrath Lucifer had been gilded in by the mark, to ease the corruption still beating through their veins,  _ Samael, Samael, Sam... _

“Happy first half a millennium, baby.” Lucifer grinned as he lifted up a glass of… alcohol. The humans had made it, and he couldn’t classify it, but it was nice. Tasted smooth, burned on the way down, like it should.

...They’d allowed a little farming and agriculture, as a treat.

_ Five hundred years. _ Sam marveled, smiling.  _ And we did all this. We made a paradise, again. It’s beautiful. _

They spread their wings behind them and looked up at the sky. Sam could point out all the stars Lucifer had had a hand in, even with their light dwarfs by the slowly setting sun.

Lucifer smiled at that, took another sip of the liquor. “It is. A new Eden.” He shook his head, smile broadening into a grin. “We did it.”

They finished their drink and sat, crosslegged, like they always did, and stared up at the stars and the sky for days.

They got meditative a lot. It was nice. One and together amd always and grace and soul indistinguishable, buzzing underneath their fingertips.

Humans, Lucifer thought, were all-right. Once you took religion and Father and too much temptation out of the way. Failable. Beautiful, ephemeral, bliss in a few short decades.

It helped, of course, that he loved one so dearly.

Sam loved, too.

Lucifer knew what it was like, to love from far away. To feel that ache. He’d learned to stop bringing it up so often.

Just, once, every decade or so, and,

_ Not today. _

“Not ever?”

_...Not today. Not today. Soon. _

Always soon. Always, always, soon. They could have a little more time to themselves, couldn’t they? Wasn’t a crime.

Sam had a hundred million reasons to rationalize how he loved his brother and yet he couldn’t bear his presence.

Lucifer understood. Soon meant soon until it meant never, and he’d let Sam get there on his own.

Dean could wait a little longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looks like this is going to be formatted in alternating between SamandLucifer and Dean and Asmodeus POVs, as of right now, which is honestly so fun? Let me know what you think!


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Forever is too long, and everything hurts.

He was screaming. Shrieking until it hurt, until his vocal chords were shredded, until he was coughing up blood.

Everything hurt. How could it not? The spirit is broken and the flesh is weak and nothing is right anymore, it’s him and Michael and him and missing wings and grace that burns like fire and grace that’s cold as ice all at once and Michael is dead and nothing will ever be right again and where is Sammy?

Where is Sam?

Whirling and twirling like sparks from a campfire in the middle of the night, his soul is rent in two and it’s agony beyond what he can imagine.

Today is a very, very bad day.

He can barely move. Not being able to move is worse is  _ terribleawfulletmeupcantmovewhycantimove _ trapping, not being able to do much more than twitch and flop his limbs uselessly and even if he bunched his hands in the blankets more luxurious than anything he’d ever slept in before he said yes, his hold was weak, was barely there, was nothing.

Was nothing. Everything was nothing. Where was Sam?

He wanted to protect and to be protected all at once.

He wanted his life back. He wanted his life in his own hands so he could use them pick up his colt with its ivory grips and shove the barrel down his throat-

Hands on his. Warm, gentle, Dean realized his eyes must have been closed because he couldn’t see anything.

They didn’t help. Barely registered as pressure because he was still trying to thrash and was barely doing more than twitching and it was torture and  _ Alastair let me up we can stop now I’ll pick up the razor just make this stop _ -

His face was wet. His face was wet because he was sobbing, wailing, tears and snot streaming down his face and into someone’s chest because he’d been lifted up and bundled right into an embrace, at some point. 

Part of him, distantly, beneath it all, appreciated that.

He didn’t have any concept of the time. How could he? No clock, no windows, no mirrors- didn’t think mirrors would help, his hands looked like a young man’s hands even though he knew he should look different. Same scars, same callouses, stasis.

He asked sometimes. Asmodeus had stopped telling him at some point, just gave him that look.

He’d never thought a demon could look sympathetic, before. False pity, he’d seen. The ‘ _ Poor Dean, daddy’s little soldier _ ’ speech he’d heard dozens of times before… before everything.

Dean didn’t think it was false sympathy, this time. When he could manage thought.

At some point, he stopped screaming, just let out hacking, broken sobs. 

Stopped doing that, at some point, too.

Regained a little bit of himself. Being cognizant ached like he couldn’t believe.

“S’Sammy?” First thing he asked. First thing he always, always asked so long as his eyes weren’t cold and it wasn’t ‘I’ll smite you if you take another step, you foul-‘

Dean whimpered. Words- not his, they… Asmodeus (Ahs-moh-deyus, the demon drawled it, Dean had snickered at the accent when he was first there, when it didn’t hurt as much. Now it was a comfort. A familiarity. The one voice besides his and sometimes Michael’s who was gone and it was still him, just broken.) was talking, slow and soft and sweet and calming.

“You’re alright. That’s it, Dean. There we go. Therrre we go, now. Alright.”

Dean coughed, and hiccuped, and realized as he finally opened his eyes that he’d gotten blood all over Asmodeus’ suit. He struggled to choke out a desperate ‘sorry’, all choked and slurred to hell.

“Naw, s’alright, my fault for wearing white, hm?” The demon murmured. He was pressing something against Dean’s skin. Rough, scratchy. Burlap. Hex bag. 

Dean grunted.

“Keepin’ your fever down, easing the pain.” Asmodeus offered as an explanation.

He was getting better at reading Dean.

The human let out a long, shuddering groan and nodded, burying his face back in the bloodstained white and screwing his eyes back shut.

Charm never worked, no matter how many iterations Asmodeus puzzled out. Dean’s thoughts were drowned out by screaming, shrieking, bits of enochian and pleas for it all to end.

It was depressing for the both of them.

Dean had asked, once, mostly lucid, for him to ‘Stephen Hawking that shit’.

No computers, anymore, not many demons that could work or build them, and Dean didn’t have the coordination to sit up, much less type, anymore, so…

That was bust, too. But Dean occasionally tapped out Morse code on Asmodeus’ back, sloppy and weak but decipherable.

They didn’t need words, much, anymore. So it all worked out.

Dean shifted. “T’me?”

It was Asmodeus’ turn to sigh. “You really wanna know, boy?”

Dean’s head flopped forwards a little more.

“Bout a millennium since Luc’fer smote Michael. Seven… eight hundred years? Gettin’ up there.” Dean would forget again, and he’d ask, again, and Asmodeus would just say ‘a while’ because the wail Dean let out against his chest was the too expensive cost of the truth.

“I know, I know. Ain’t fair. No one’s even seen Lucifer for about five hundred of that- word jus’ comes down from on high. Ramiel does most’a the governing down here.”

Asmodeus should be venting to someone else. Shouldn’t put this burden, no matter how brief it was, on an already broken mind.

He thought he was beginning to crack, too. They all were.

“We don’t know where Lucifer is. I can’t pray to him, I don’t think they listen to us. If they listened to you they’d be down here by now.”

Dean whined.

“Ain’t fair. I look after you, for what?” When Dean tensed, he sighed. “Better than nothin’. No duty. Better than what a lot have. I like… this. Makes me feel a little… better. Human. An’ I didn’t like that at first.” 

There was a time he did the bare minimum because he worried about what it was doing to him and his blackened soul.

It was a cruelty, to Dean. This was his assigned post, not that he believed Lucifer would even notice if he abandoned it, and-

Really, the least he could fucking do was give Dean someone to talk to.

Be talked to by. 

And it eased some of his own sin, his own burden, because the world was changed and no one downstairs fit in it anymore.

He sat up a little straighter and pulled Dean into his lap, small and weak and barely moving himself, breath coming shallow and shaky.

Asmodeus knew that if he used the charm abandoned on the side table, pressed it to Dean’s neck, it’d be that mellow cacophony of where’s Sammy, let me go, wanna sleep, love you, don’t leave me, hurts, hurts, hurts.

They didn’t need words.

“I’m gonna make you some soup,” Dean couldn’t really chew too well anymore- Lucifer must have been putting a little less effort into maintaining him, or it was just that wasting away so long doing nothing made you all around weaker- as they’d found out in the last ten some odd years, but something warm and blended in his mouth and down his throat was always appreciated.

“And we’re gonna read some more’a that book, and we’ll see if we can’t make a better day out of this.”

Dean hummed, and Asmodeus sighed, smiling.

“Got a present, for you, too.” Asmodeus paused, felt the man shift a millimeter, felt his lips quirk up into an open mouthed smile against his vest.

“Found an old gramophone. Figure it’ll work out with some newer vinyl. Scrounged up some records.” Made a deal for them, whatever, he didn’t care, he’d gotten them and he’d paid up and it was settled.

“Stuff you’re supposed to like. Got, hm, Physical Graffiti, 1984 and 5150, Kinda Kinks, few others.”

Dean struggled to speak, Asmodeus shushed him. So he tapped slowly at the demon’s chest,  _ thank you thank you thank you thank yo- _

Asmodeus spoon-fed him bone broth, and they listened to Houses of the Holy.

And Dean curled against Asmodeus’ chest, soothed by its steady rise and fall. Breathing was a courtesy, and Dean was ever-thankful.

“Now where did we leave off?” Asmodeus hummed, moved Dean up a little as he stretched to pick up the book on the side table.

Ramiel could head the armies and Dagon could keep them in line and he’d be oh so happy just to stay here.

“Mm. Part two. The sieve and the sand.” Asmodeus cleared his throat, and read.


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Convergence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the shorter chapter! Want to devote more time to actual Sam/Lucifer/Dean/Asmodeus interaction tomorrow

The humans made blood sacrifices every ten years. SamandLucfier were honored. Drank in the sweet smell of burning flesh, watched as the sacrificial fire climbed up as it to reach out and grasp the full moon between tongues of flame.

The humans sang and danced and drank sweet wine and breathed their praises out hot and heavy.

For crops. For love. For fortune, and for power. For their God.

They didn’t know what was going on in Heaven, with no angels to guard it and watch over the souls.

They just knew that the good ones- the good ones by their judging went up, and they knew it was bliss.

Somehow still organized, somehow still running with no angels and no belief in the old God, but it ran nonetheless.

They didn’t question it.

Sam laughed, leaning back, slouching, eyes closed as he spread their wings.  _ They’re beautiful. _

“They’re ours.”

Wings whole, unblemished, healed after so so long in the clear air and the moon and the sun dancing across sunset feathers, spread out and shook and shuddered and beauty, beauty, glory to God in the Highest.

They flew and grace and soul twined together, french-braided themselves into a homogenous mixture of joy, joy, joy.

Around the world in as long as it takes for a tear to fall, for as long as they wanted, every nook and cranny and animal  _ theirs. Ours. _

“Today?”

_ Today. _

Lucifer wouldn’t tread into hell. Wouldn't sully their wings with sulfur, wouldn’t feel the foreboding presence of the cage that refused to be destroyed. Cramped and closed in and his prison, his life sentence that was only commuted a thousand years ago when he slew the jailer. 

It’s tunneled halls and cobbled stone and flickering torchlight and gold and treasures and horrors all alike, all the same, either his creation or part of the trap meant to bind him for as long as it took.

He wouldn’t even breathe it’s cursed name. Wouldn’t entertain the barest thought because sometimes that was enough to get them cowering, just the memory alone.

Even Gods can have monsters under their beds.

So he called.

Orders from on-high.

_ Bring Dean Winchester to Earth. _

—

“Goddamn- alright. Alright.” Asmodeus closed his eyes just before they could shutter a sulfuric yellow.

Now. Now, after so long, now, after years of silence, just felt like it was on a whim, no other reply when he prayed for more.

It wasn’t fair. It was just as unfair as leaving the poor bastard down here to rot with demonkind for a thousand years.

Not to mention the time difference.

Dean was asleep.

The room was quiet. Asmodeus snarled and slammed his fist into the wall hard enough to crack stone.

“Alllright.” He let out a few breaths, scrubbing his hands back over his face and through his hair.

A few more ragged breaths as he calmed himself. 

He worked to take advantage of Dean’s sleep. 

Changed out his catheter, replaced the bag with the sort that could be strapped to his leg. Wiped him down, dressed him- t-shirt and sweatpants and a loose hoodie, nothing too stifling.

When he stirred, Asmodeus offered a smile. “Well good mornin’.” He hid his anger behind a happy grin, brows raised. “Guess what we’re doin’, hm?”

Dean blinked slowly, staring down at Asmodeus. “Get your  _ hands _ off of me.” He bit out testily, twitching as he struggled to pull back even an inch. “You’re lucky I don’t strike you dead. One of Lucifer’s playthings, an insignificancy, dust under my feet.”

Asmodeus’ face fell in a way that would have tugged on Dean’s heartstrings if Dean was… Dean. “No. No, we ain’t doin’ this today, you’re not gonna ruin your only chance of seeing your brother for more than a godforsaken hour, not on my watch.”

“Lucifer? Abandoned us. A millennia. No.” 

Well, that was a ‘no questions asked’ decision if Asmodeus ever heard one.

“Us?” He echoed, but backed off respectfully once he’d propped Dean up against the headboard.

“I will not let my charge, my vessel, my sword be tempted by the serpent, fooled into complacency. We will not.”

Michael, Dean, same difference, same story, same man, same angel even with one half of a perfect pair ground to dust.

“They’ve kept you here, Dean, they care about you.” Asmodeus didn’t know if that was true, anymore.

“If Lucifer cared. If Sam cared. Would they not have come already? How long has it been, demon?” Dean spat, the rage and pain in his eyes incomprehensible.

Asmodeus supposed he was glad he was talking. That there seemed to be some crossover between ‘Michael’ and Dean enough for the… the whatever he was, at this point, to come to the logical conclusion. “Would they not have just let me go if they weren’t going to come? Why wouldn’t they come? Why wouldn’t they come, Asmodeus?” Dean’s voice broke, there, in the middle.

Because it was Dean. Broken, shattered, splintered Dean trying out a new voice, one strong enough to speak.

Asmodeus shook his head.

“How long?”

“Over a millennia, you know that. Closer to… what, fifteen hundred?”

Dean grit his teeth even as his lower lip trembled and tears beaded in his eyes. 

“We gotta take you up there, son, they don’t like being made to wait.”

“I don’t want to.”

“You don’t mean that.”

Dean choked back a sob. He didn’t. He didn’t mean it, but he wanted to.

They didn’t need words.

“Come on.” Asmodeus cajoled as he drifted back over, hooked his hands under Dean’s arms to help him to his feet. He supported Dean’s too-light weight entirely.

Dean whimpered. “It’s not him anymore.” He whispered quietly, straight backed posture slumping.

“Ain’t fully Lucifer, either. It’s them. And we’ll see what they have to say, and what we can say back. See if we can’t fix things.”

Dean nodded jerkily, head flopping forwards before Asmodeus nudged it back up, and they were gone.

And the sun after so long was bright and beautiful and horrifying and Dean felt as though he’d gone blind.

He screamed.

And there was no one there but Asmodeus to hear him.


	6. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And many happy returns.

Another suit ruined. Asmodeus had lowered himself to sit on the dew-dropped grass and had Dean held gently in his lap, rocking him from time to time, helping him calm, hoping desperately all would go well and they’d actually figure something out about helping him.

About helping them. They were all abandoned, they were all missing father and brother and king, demons and souls and Dean.

“Mhm, that’s right, you’re alright, shh.” He soothed, soft and slow and repetitive. He read to Dean a lot. All the books he’d never read, high school and college curriculum he never saw or paid attention to, all the children’s stories he’d only gotten for four short years.

And now they had over a thousand to catch up. Asmodeus had the entire works of Lewis Carrol memorized (not the logic puzzles or essays, just the fun ones; the poems and the stories), and he was nearly there with a few of Vonnegut’s.

And Dean loved it. The soft melodic nature of a voice reading, the bouncing lilt of poetry and prose, the escape of an imagined world.

“The sun was shining on the sea, shining with all his might: he did his very best to make- the billows smooth and bright — And this was odd, because it was- the middle of the night,”

Dean hummed, and Asmodeus smiled.

_ Why is he holding him like that? _ Sam asked, almost incensed, as they alighted in the small clearing behind Asmodeus and his brother. 

It was tender. It was intimate. It was disgusting, a demon with its grubby little paws all over his brother.

“Your orders were to look after him. What’s this?”

Asmodeus’ head snapped up and his words died in his throat, entire form tense and he could feel the grace in the air around them. 

And the utter indignation, from SamandLucifer, it was… made his essence want to curl up into a little ball and light itself ablaze.

“I’m…” Asmodeus started, at a loss for words, “Sorry, my lord, I don’t- I am taking care of him.”

_ Get up. Get up,  _ “Get up, stand up. Stand up to address me.”

Asmodeus tugged Dean against his chest a little tighter and slowly rose to his feet. Dean was curled in, arms slung around his neck, head lolling to the side. “Sire?”

_ Why did we choose this one? Why isn’t Dean- _

“S’mmy?” Dean croaked, squirming and blinking rapidly against the sun as he strained to see his brother.

Sam’s lips curled up into a grimace. “Sam.” He corrected. 

None of the playfulness, none of the ‘it’s Sam, Sammy was a chubby twelve-year old’ because he was timeless and ageless and all powerful and his name was Samuel and his name was Lucifer. Sam would do.

“Sam, S’m, please, please, here, please,” Dean pleaded, brows knit and raised in the middle and eyes swimming with tears.

Sam took a step back. Lucifer took a step back.

“Hurts please, please, please, love you, miss you, please don’t go, so long so so long please please please  _ please _ -“

Asmodeus hefted the man a little in his arms. “S’alright, you’re alright, they ain’t going anywhere.” They’d better not be. “Sh, s’good you’re talking but we don’t want too much strain-“

“Put him down.”

Blinking, stupefied, “He can’t-“

“Put him down. You don’t deserve to hold him, you don’t deserve to have your hands on him, your job is to look after him. Not to love him. That’s my- that’s our job.” They clenched their jaw, staring down at Asmodeus with a righteous fury that made the demon’s scars throb like they’d only just been clawed into his face.

Asmodeus dutifully released Dean. Let him fall to the ground with a muffled shout of pain, writhing, reaching blindly back for Asmodeus and  _ why why why don’t leave me- _

Sam blinked and he was crouching in front of his brother, cupping his face in his hands. “Dean.” He breathed slowly, and smiled.

He didn’t fit in his own skin. Older than he looked, Lucifer’s and his own experiences shining in his eyes, so long, so much, knowledge and pain and love.

“Sammy. Sammy, huh,” Dean grunted, lower lip quivering. “It hurts.”

“I know. I know. I can… see.” And Sam was elbow deep in his brother’s chest and brushing his thumb over fragments of soul and Dean was shrieking like mad, eyes wide with fear and betrayal.

He just didn’t understand. “I’m helping. Shut up. Let me-“

Pushing, pulling, Dean was coughing up blood onto Sam’s white suit.

Lucifer was the one that yanked them back. Let the righteous man fall broken to the forest floor. “You can’t put his soul back together. Can’t yank out our brother’s grace. I’ve tried.”

Their eyes flashed scarlet when Asmodeus approached Dean, a warning. “You will do better. Heal him. Conscious, walking, all of it. Your job isn’t to love him. He is hurting Sam. He is hurting me. I won’t have them speak further if this is the result.”

Triplet like a sheet snapping in the wind, and-

“You son of a bitch, Lucifer- he needs you! He needs his goddamn brother, get back here-“ Stooped to lift Dean, still howling, into his arms. “...Get back here.” 

White suede shoe thumping against a clod of grass, kicking up dirt, the only real anger he allowed himself to express in that moment.

They didn’t need words. Dean needed an explanation.

“He’s gone. They’re gone, Dean.”

A broken-hearted wail echoed amongst the trees, and Asmodeus almost couldn’t bear it.

But if he wouldn’t, who else would?

_ I don’t want to go back. _

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.” Lucifer soothed as they alighted on the upper-most branch of a redwood tree.

_ I don’t. I don’t. I can’t. We’ll take care of him, but I won’t go back. And that demon- _ Too close, too comfortable, too caring, it was SamandLucifer that was helping Dean, they were the ones helping Dean, they were doing all the heavy lifting, weren’t they? They were keeping him alive.

“Has no right. I know.” Lucifer frowned down at the mud on his shoes. He didn’t like this. Didn’t like Asmodeus with Dean, no, but he did at the same time. It was hard to separate his thoughts from Sam’s.

He didn’t like Sam’s refusal to do more.

But Sam got what Sam wanted. Sam deserved the world.

And if Sam didn’t want to see his brother, they’d wait a thousand years, a hundred thousand, until he was finally better and they could finally talk again, and they would all be happy and Sam might get the fairy-tale reunion Lucifer never could have. Sam deserved everything Lucifer never got.

They had the world. They could wait a little on a brother that loved them and could actually voice it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem Asmodeus started to recite is ’The Walrus and The Carpenter’ by Lewis Carol.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Expanding on relationships.

Years passed. Time marched steadily on as it always did, weathered away the final vestiges of the world Before and embraced the world made anew.

Clean and pure and perfect paradise.

SamandLucifer culled humans, every dozen generations or so. Didn’t let the budding villages get too big for their britches, halted industrialization whenever there was even a distant spark of it.

Nature would not be tainted.

Man would not be tainted.

They shepherded and guided and, on occasion, if someone prayed, they came. If someone was desperate enough, if they prayed right, if they had a real need, they came.

They came and they took vengeance, or offered counsel, or simply sat and spread their wings and gave comfort.

There were few enough people and they were selective enough that it didn’t spread them too thin.

Sam sometimes wondered what the point of being involved with something so small was, when he had all these years behind and ahead of him, when he would see them return to dust no matter how long lived they were. Why even bother?

Lucifer delighted in the ephemerality of it all. It grounded him, he said, these little apes that prostrated themselves and he didn’t need to recognize them as greater.

All he needed to do was see and guide and watch them learn. And wasn’t it beautiful?

_ You have me _ , Sam would say, almost jealous with the hurt in his tone of thought.

“You’re different. I love you.” Lucifer would reply simply as they vanished away to explore the deepest depths of an underwater cave, chill of the water seeping into their bones,

And they soared above and within the rainforest, darting between and around the trees, perching on the tangled roots in a mangrove and sinking their teeth into the sweet flesh of the fruits that grew there.

Creation was beautiful. Sam far preferred it to any company besides, of course, Lucifer’s.

They laid naked in the moonlight on sand soft as silk in front of water clear as crystals, bioluminescence dancing and playing beneath the surface and swirling in the waves, the choppy water only stirring them and making them glow brighter.

_ I love you more than anything _ . Sam breathed, laughing, drunk on sacrificial wine.

And their face was ruddy, cheeks flushed, Lucifer felt it too because what Sam felt he felt and everything was shared, even intolerance for drink. “I love you too, Sam.”

_ More than them? _

Lucifer blinked their eyes against the star-shine, caught off guard. “Of course I love you more than them. You’re my everything, my other half, my light, Sam. Of course I love you. I love-“

_ Then- then why don’t we spend some time away from their little colonies? _ Sam spat the last word as if he were talking about an infestation of termites.

An apt simile. They allowed a little farming, allowed them to plow farrows into the earth, to clear a little of the overgrown forest, to dig wells.

“They need guidance.”

_ They’ll manage a hundred years. You love me? Let’s explore the Amazon again. Let’s swim to the bottom of the ocean, let’s fly to Alpha Centauri, let’s make a new species. A million billion beautiful things we can do, Lucifer, with us, with you, let’s take a break from them. You love me, don’t you? _

“What if they carve their own way? Go where we don’t want, do something… what if we need to step in?”

_ Then we’ll step in. If they do more than we allowed, we can just clear them away and start again. Make a plague. Send in the stalkers and the carnivores, let them be rent and torn. They’ll die, anyways, all it takes is two to start a new generation. _

Lucifer frowned, at that. “No, Sam. We’re not my Father. We’ll not-“

_ We’re God. We’re  _ better _ than your Father.  _

“That’s enough, Sam.”

_ We’re better than He ever was, He cast you out, He’s the one who made them in the first place, I don’t know why you let me stop you from wiping them out. Wiping the slate fully clean. _

“Because I love you.”

_ Do you? _

—

Asmodeus didn’t bother distancing himself from Dean. Why would he? An undeserved cruelty added to a long list of undeserved cruelties that started with Azazel’s fire. Hell, that started with the Cupid’s arrow that struck Mary Winchester.

Too many to count.

But, 

But he did do what LuciferandSam had said in other respects. They worked on mobility.

Dean cried through that, a lot, because all he felt was useless, useless, useless, never going to walk or hold anything again.

Stumbling in Asmodeus’ hold, staggering to and fro across the room with support, with limited support, with a cane because one leg was still stubbornly unmoving.

They got him holding things, fabric, balls, a pen he could hold in his fist and write big, chunky letters with, if he wanted.

Dean had cried a lot when Asmodeus guided him through signing his name. Scrawled out on a legal pad, too big, too messy, but his. His name. His hand. His pen.

Wet, ugly tears, snot and all as he sobbed and bundled himself against Asmodeus’ chest.

Asmodeus didn’t have training or teaching, of course he didn’t, therapy and healing weren’t exactly in his job description Before.

...unless letting Lucifer wail on him, the weakest, when he was upset, was therapy. Asmodeus didn’t think that counted.

But what they did have a whole hell of a lot was, was time.

So he found books on speech therapy in the archives, and he read with Dean lounged in his lap, face against his chest.

And the next day, or the next week, he’d work Dean through what he could. And they got better. Both of them.

Asmodeus doing more than reading to Dean and easing his pain and talking at him. Doing more than was ever, ever asked of him.

Dean having something to work towards and follow through on and practice.

There were still off days, where he’d scream and scream and scream and nothing would calm him.

Where the pain was so bad all Asmodeus could do was hold him and rock him as he wailed.

But Asmodeus didn’t find himself dealing with Michael at all.

And Dean stopped asking about Sam entirely.

Asmodeus had asked him, about that, over turkey club sandwiches and sodas, a bit of a reward for Dean being able to walk the room end to end and open the bathroom door- and lock it after himself- all on his own.

“No.” Dean mumbled around a mouthful, pausing to finish chewing.

“No. I’m not gonna ask ‘cause he ain’t coming, you know that. And even if he does-“ He grimaced, pain spiking like a lightning bolt through his heart, guilt and anger and the tears in his soul all at once.

“He’s n-n-“ Dean clenched his jaw, breath coming hard through his nose and tears prickling in his eyes.

“Take your time. Think before you speak, jus’ like we gone over.”

Dean hated the fact he slurred some of his words. The fact he stuttered, the fact sometimes he couldn’t find any words at all.

But it was better than before.

No thanks to Sam. No thanks to Lucifer.

“He left me.” Dean finally said, tone blank. Empty.

“Thousands- thousands, now? Plural?”

Asmodeus nodded.

“Thousands of years. I don’t have anything. I mean- I have you, I love… what you’ve done for me, owe you a lot, but- I don’t do anything. I’m here for him to, to, what, ease his guilt? Fuck that. Fuck that, man. He doesn’t get to kill Michal and keep me alive and expect me to get better without- with- w- huh, without him.” He deflated, staring down at his plate. “...I’m sorry.”

“What for? Y’ain’t wrong. I’m happy for you.” Asmodeus gave a tiny smile. “You… you need this. Needed to figure that out. He don’t care, doesn’t matter what he says, now I can stop pretending he loves, cares, whatever.”

Dean chuckled weakly, shifted to lean against the demon. “Can we do pie tonight?”

“Mn, we’re milking it with the sodas, but I’ll talk to Belphagor. See what I can do.” The actual avatar of gluttony was who you went to for food that didn’t really exist anymore. The glass bottles of soda (Dr. Pepper, Coke) and the bacon on their sandwiches, for example.

Dean didn’t bat an eye when Asmodeus tilted his head in to press a chaste kiss to the side of his head,

He smiled, in fact. “He’s a softie, he likes indulging you. Really p- pushing it would be ice cream.”

“Greedy pig. We’ll do pie and pie alone, tonight.”

Dean curled a little further into Asmodeus, closing his eyes and humming. 

“Thank you.”


	8. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solitude sometimes is the best society.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: rape

Their god had two faces. Two lovers, one body; fire and ice and sun and moon in harmony. Guardian of the natural world, steward of humanity.

Their god had two names. Some prayed to one over the other, some prayed to both, conjoined.

She prayed to anyone who would listen.

Desperate, face tracked with tears and dirt and eyes red-rimmed and puffy.

The language wasn’t English, it’d be stupid to assume that would survive for so long. In writing it was pictorial, in sound, what could be described as an odd mix between the Sino-Tibetan and Romance language groups.

Odd to Sam, so very fascinating to Lucifer, and that was only with this cluster of ‘colonies’. Others had their own languages.

But they were easy enough to figure out. Lucifer had known every previous language, that blessing had extended immediately to this new one.

Easy enough to understand her through the sobs and muffled meals of pain and  _ “Please, please, make him stop- make him stop, stop, please, god, make him stop _ ,”

No matter how far they were removed from the humanity of Before, no matter how they developed or if they hadn’t,

Humans were still animals.

Animals with morality, no matter how many generations since Eve had sunk her teeth into that fig, it stuck.

They knew what was right. They always, no matter language or culture or creed or civilization, knew what was wrong.

And somehow always found the will to plunge head-first into sin.

Young. So young, too young, even by this village’s self imposed standards.

The man behind her broad and tall and grunting as he shoved her harder against the wall, stopped her struggling with no effort, one broad palm wrapped around her throat and the other pinning her wrists together and there was blood, blood on her hitched down skirt, blood on him as he pistoned his hips,

The smell of blood and sweat and pain and horror and ill-gotten bliss.

And then it was burning flesh, and a palm splayed over his forehead, grace and soul and fire and ice and his eyes shining with the two bright glory of it all and she was screaming and she was saved. She was saved, she was crying, and it still hurt like a red hot poker in her insides. 

And there were wings around her. And a hand on her lower stomach, glowing, and the pain…

The pain eased, felt like it was being washed away, like water was lapping over the source of it all, healing and cleaning both.

“You’re safe, now.” Lucifer whispered. Murmured, soft and sweet and calming and she understood clearly, even if it sounded different than what she spoke.

She supposed, vaguely, as she clung to him, that gods must have their own language, but it wouldn’t do them any good for no one to understand it.

“He’s gone.” Lucifer added, as an afterthought, and, “My… my child, are you alright?”

She sniffled, stayed against him a few minutes because no, of course not, no matter how cleaned and healed her god had made her it was still violation, it was still dirty and so was she and-

“Would you like to forget?” They blinked, cocked their head to the side when they felt her nod against his chest.

“...I can help you forget.” Sam murmured, hands sliding up from where they rested, moved under her blouse.

Warm and heavy and she leaned into the touch.

“Can make you forget.” Hands cupping at her undeveloped breasts, thumbs stroking small circles into unblemished skin, Lucifer was frozen.

Frozen, staring out blankly through their eyes as she squirmed, uncomfortable and not understanding and it was his turn for directed thought, and,  _ Sam, what are we doing? _

Sam drew their lips up into a smile. “Sh, you’re alright.” He lowered his head, lips against her forehead and nose buried in her black hair and he inhaled deeply, eyes fluttering shut.

She’d die in fifty years. Would have died tonight if they didn’t respond to her prayer.  _ Whatever we want. You care about her? She’s ours, she owes us her life, you love her so much more than me that you’d deny me? This… insignificancy. This ant, this ape, dust beneath our feet in so short a time. You’d deny me, Lucifer? _

Lucifer clenched his jaw, hands suddenly shaking where they held her. And then he lifted them to the sides of her head, and eased the pain, plucked out the memory of suffering and erased it. And then he stooped to wipe away the blood and to redress her and to take her into the church built in their honor.

And for the first time in… for the first time in over a thousand years his own thoughts were shielded from Sam. Worry. Upset, disgust, panic,  _ why, why, why, is it still the mark? Does it still affect me, even gone? Affect us? What do I do? _

And there was no higher power to ask for guidance but himself. No answer in his mind, nothing but distance and time from… was it humanity itself, that sparked this, or the fact that they held themselves above it?

He sat them under a great elm hundreds and hundreds of miles away from any man, control fully in his hands much as Sam was fighting it.

_ How could you do that to me? _

“You were embarrassing yourself.” But that wasn’t quite the right way to put it, was it? It wasn’t embarrassment, it was wrong, and after all this time Lucifer would never have wanted himself to be the judge of that. Never wanted to be the one to say ‘this far and no further’. 

_ Tell me the truth, Lucifer. Do you love me _ ?

“I love you so much that what you’re doing hurts. We’re going to take a break, from them. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Sam’s upper lip curled, and he remained silent. Sulking.

Lucifer stood, light as air, and stared up at the sky. “You’ll thank me.” He promised, as he spread his wings, and with a sound like the snapping of cotton sheets in the summer breeze, they were gone.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a finite amount of space in the human mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: suicidal ideation

Dean wrapped his hand like a claw around the pawn, slowly moved it forwards two spaces. 

The board was marble and onyx, same of the pieces, edged with gold and silver respectively.

From Mammon. Avarice. Asmodeus said the little shit had so big a horde he wouldn’t hardly notice if they took a quarter of it.

But for now, the chess board and pieces alone, was fine.

“What do you guys even-“ Dean cleared his throat, eyes going far away for a moment before he blinked himself back into lucidity. “-do down here?”

Asmodeus sighed, taking a sip of his bourbon as he looked done contemplatively at the board, pinching his forefinger, middle finger, and thumb around the top of his knight and moving it forwards. “Not much. I mean- I got you as a practically full time job, so I ain’t complainin’, but the rest don’t got much. Not a lot of humans dying anymore, even less actually coming down to Hell. And all the ones we had from Before, even from the apocalypse- well, they’re already all taken care of, all demons. So they wander the pits, they torture eachother, they hoard and they fuck and…” He shrugged. “Some use the archives, read. They’ve had more’n enough time to have gone through it twice over, I reckon. But there’s- can summon things if you remember them, an’ we got some physical copies of music, instruments…” He frowned as Dean took his knight with his bishop, hissing in a sharp breath through his teeth. “So. Not much.”

Dean scratched at the side of his face and hunched forwards, wincing. “Can’t go to earth?”

“Naw. Gates are closed, ‘less Lucifer calls for you. And that ain’t exactly happening.” Asmodeus pursed his lips, tapping his fingers on the side of the small table before he selected another pawn and pushed it forwards.

“Huh.” Dean frowned, letting out a long sigh. “How do you deal with being so old?”

Asmodeus arched a brow. “S’at a genuine question or are you ribbing me?”

Dean shrugged. “Genuine question. I… I- I know I’m forgetting things.” He swallowed. “And it all still hurts. You told me your scars, always hurt, one- once. But there’s so much. And a lot keeps just… slipping out.” He blinked, eyes suddenly prickling with tears. “Barely- b-barely remember before. I got- Sam, and Bobby, I got bits and pieces… bits and pieces of Dad. Cas. I know I knew other people, I’d have had to. I know I had pictures of my mom, I can’t see her face no matter how hard I try, I can’t see dad’s face, can just hear him, just feel- I can’t see them.” His lower lip quivered and he couldn’t see the board anymore, everything just a hazy smear through the tears now starting to roll down his cheeks. “And they’re all dead, anyways. Right?”

Asmodeus’ shoulders dropped and he sighed.

Bobby, Mary, John, dead, in heaven. Sam with Lucifer. Castiel presumed dead in the fight between Lucifer and Michael and everyone on the side.

Crowley had been executed by Lucifer as a traitor.

Anyone else Dean would have known long since dust.

“Dead and gone.” Asmodeus didn’t have a better way to answer, not even if he tried.

“What about me?” Dean whispered. “What if I want to-“ 

Asmodeus stood up from his chair, stepped around the coffee table to sit next to Dean on the couch. They’d gotten more furniture, ‘sides the bed, when Dean got more of his mobility back.

“We can’t.” Asmodeus murmured, wrapping Dean up in a halfway embrace the man melted into. “Even if I was to rip your still-beating heart out, Lucifer’s grace’d keep you alive. I know. I know you’ve always been thinking about it, I don’t blame you, ‘cause what other choice do you got? But you don’t even have that. Can’t even go with your head still about you. I know. I’m sorry.”

He was sorry. Asmodeus had been feeling a whole lot more than any demon had a right to, when he was with Dean. Had seen the man as mindless, seen him strong, seen him struggling, always been there, always tried to help.

First out of obligation, then out of righteous anger, still out of righteous anger, but there was a great deal of care. Of softness, of weakness, but when he looked at it, he didn’t feel all that weak, for what he felt. Not anymore.

“I just wanna go,” Dean croaked, clutching at Asmodeus. “I just want it all to stop.” And there was guilt, there. Wanting to leave his only friend, the only person he really knew anymore, alone.

It was too much. It was all too much, and he felt this close to just falling off the deep end again, because when he was screaming all day he hadn’t been subjected to the pain of thought and memory and being so lost even with nowhere to go. 

“I just want it to be  _ over _ , and I know it’ll never be, and I’ll be stuck right back down here and they’ll huh- h-h-have something to do, Righteous man back on the ra- rack again, tear me to pieces, turn-“

“Dean,” Asmodeus whispered,

“Turn me inside out and show me how I work, t-t-“

“Dean.” Asmodeus cupped the back of Dean’s head, brought him into his lap, still so easy to manhandle even with his strength partially recovered.

Dean sniffled, words dying in his throat as his back shook with sobs he refused to let out. “I just wanna go. Why won’t they let me go? I wanna go, wanna go, Asmodeus,  _ please _ ,”

“I know. I know, boy, I know.” Asmodeus rested his chin over top of Dean’s head, closing his eyes.

“Hold me.” Dean pleaded.

“I am. I’ve got you, Dean. I’m here.  _ I’m _ here. You’re alright.”

“Can we lay down?” Dean whispered shakily, curling ever tighter in on himself. “Wanna lay down, want you to hold me.”

They were on the bed in a split second. Dean tucked himself so small, so slight, into Asmodeus’ chest and sobbed until he didn’t have anything left in him anymore.

And Asmodeus pressed a kiss to his forehead, soft, gentle, and Dean guided his head further down for something proper.

Something tender. He needed something tender.

Asmodeus would have given the world if he’d asked, or he would have at least tried.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love is a funny thing, isn’t it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise I meant for this to be a Sam story.

“I love you.” He said it more and more often, in so many ways. Soft, desperate, eager, in pain just pleading for an end, an  _ I love you, please make it stop, please, please, please _ .

He blinked slowly, looking around the room and drinking every detail in. “Why…” A question on the tip of his tongue, eating away at his heart. It felt like it was biting, a steel trap around his aorta, digging in and sparking with electricity.

If there was one thing he was certain about it was that he definitely had the experience needed to make that simile. Simile?

Like was for similes, nothing but comparison was metaphors.  _ Right _ . He knew that.

And there was a soft hand carding through his hair, a touch so, so familiar, he loved this person-

Demon. Hell. Sam. Lucifer. Apocalypse.

Message straight to his soul, injected into his brain. Dean closed his eyes again and swallowed. “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to-“

“You shouldn’t need it.” Asmodeus responded gently. It was palliative care, though Dean… well, Dean should have been at the end of his life. When he remembered, he was fully prepared for it.

But it wasn’t. And Asmodeus didn’t know if it would ever be. Ever get close.

Dean’s shoulders slumped as he sorted through everything. “I had a nightmare.” He admitted. “It- was, uh, Dad.” He swallowed, throat bobbing. “Think I got a better picture of him in my head, now. That’s good?”

“That’s good.” Asmodeus sighed through his nose as he looked down at Dean. “Probably best not to dwell. Doubt it’s a comfortable subject-“

“No. I think it’s fine.” Dean scratched at his neck. “It’s like- I was a different person. He didn’t hurt… me. Not me. Right now, me. I look ba-back on what I remember, if I remember,” He sniffed, “And I can say ‘woah. That’s, uh, f- fucked up.’” He shrugged, sitting up. “The…” He looked at the books on the shelf on the opposite wall as if they might help. They did, somehow. “Parentification, and, uh, whatever else. Fucked that me up big time. I’m probably still fucked up.” He laughed. “Even if I don’t remember. Maybe it’s better like this.” He grunted as he shoved himself up to his feet, wobbling slightly and grappling blindly at his side until Asmodeus stood to offer him support.

“Mm. Maybe.” Asmodeus didn’t think so, but he wouldn’t disparage Dean over something he had no control over. “Breakfast?”

Dean wrinkled his nose. “Don’t think I can do solids today.” He admitted, shaking his head at the thought.

He… he, he, who, Michael- Michael hadn’t liked eating, either. Didn’t like the mouth-feel or the texture or the taste or the aroma.

“Maybe we can swing water. But,” Dean leaned heavily into Asmodeus and reached under his shirt to feel at port of his g-tube.

“Don’t fuss with it.” Asmodeus said, shifting his arm around Dean’s waist and guiding him over to the small table.

“I know, I know, I know. Quit telling me. I’ll be fine.” Dean waved him off, staggering the final few steps. Stubborn in the fact he wanted to do it on his own. He flopped into his chair, breathless, and let out a soft whimper.

Asmodeus placed his hands on his hips. “Hurts?” Of course it did. Dean’s soul didn’t get any better. Didn’t get any less fragmented.

Dean just got better at dealing with it.

Dean nodded.

“You gotta tell me these things.” Asmodeus sighed, closing his eyes at the inevitable ‘sorry, I keep…’

Forgetting. Not remembering. Not thinking to.

“I know. Think morphine’s gonna touch it?”

“Ah, no clue. Give me the good stuff anyways.” Dean moved to roll up his sleeve, before he paused. “I have a port. In my chest.”

“Mhm.” 

“I… I hate this, man.” Dean whispered, throat bobbing as he swallowed and used shaking hands to peel off his thin shirt.

“I know-“

“No.” Dean stared down at the table, nostrils flaring. “You don’t. You don’t, don’t p- puh, placate me. Don’t.” He slumped, staring down at himself. He was skinny. Soft.

_ Let yourself go, boy _ .

Well. He still knew his father’s voice. He closed his eyes to focus for a few seconds, lower lip quivering. He wanted a different voice. Any other voice.

_ Think I’d ever love you like this? You’re going to be alone. I won’t talk to a brother that can’t remember me. What do I look like, Dean? _

Dean didn’t think the Sammy dancing along the fringes of his memory would say that, but for the life of him, he couldn’t answer his question.

_ You’ll never see me again. You know it. And I’ll never let you go. _

“Dean…”

“I’m sorry.” Dean croaked, leaning back, watching blearily as Asmodeus approached. “I don’t mean- you’re here. You know me better than I do. I love you. I’m sorry.”

“You only love me ‘cause you don’t got anyone else.” Asmodeus crouched, stooped over and guided the needle of a syringe into Dean’s port, lip drawn between his teeth as he pushed down the plunger.

Dean sighed. “You know that’s not true.” He mumbled. “You know I do.”

Asmodeus stepped away to dispose of the needle. He was silent for a minute as he drifted back over, gently rubbing Dean’s shoulder. Skin gone pale from lack of sun, but was still freckled. The demon gave a tiny smile. “...Yeah.” He didn’t know if he had the words to respond.

“Hold me?”

Asmodeus nodded, helped Dean up so he could take his place, situate the man in his lap. “Like that?”

“Mhm.” Dean closed his eyes, turning his head to place a soft kiss to Asmodeus’ cheek. “Kiss me?”

Asmodeus cupped the back of Dean’s head, raked his fingers up through his hair. He’d have to cut it again, soon. And then he leaned in, pressed his lips to Dean’s. 

Reciprocated when Dean moved against him, only pulled away when Dean did, breathless. “Like that?”

Dean smiled lazily, soft laugh huffing out from between his lips. “Yeah.”

“Mm. I’ll keep it in mind that you like it that way. Maybe surprise you.” Asmodeus shifted, clicked his fingers together to summon a bottle of prepared food.

Blended. According to Dean, ‘the only goddamn way you’ll get a vegetable in me’.

Asmodeus had discovered that on days he was up to actually eating, candied yams were palatable, as were green beans sautéed with slivered almonds and butter.

The small stopper on Dean’s feeding tube removed, tip of a filled syringe (slip-tip, no needle over it) fit snugly in.

They spoke softly. 

Dean asked more questions, gave Asmodeus a better idea of his mental state.

“Can we put some music on?” He asked when they were done, and Asmodeus was swabbing around the tube and putting the stopper back in, helping Dean back into his shirt.

The pain was a little better.

“Mmhm. Need help getting on over to the gramophone, or do you wanna go on your own?”

“I can walk.” Dean scoffed, before pausing. “My, uh,” He swallowed, blanking on the word for a few seconds until Asmodeus handed over his cane.

“Thanks.” Dean hobbled across the room and Asmodeus watched as he slowly, shaking, knelt, rifled through the records on the shelf.

He passed over a few, fingers drifting slowly over them, before he found the singles.

Asmodeus sighed.

_ Revolution _ , and  _ Hey Jude _ .

“Why not, hm, Rubber Soul? F’you’re in a Beatles mood.” Dean had told him, once or twice, in his first thousand years, Mary used to sing, hum, whatever,  _ Hey Jude _ when he got upset.

Maybe that’s why it got him so worked up, now. Traces of comfort he’d never get again. Asmodeus wouldn’t claim to know.

“Nah. Feeling this one.” Dean clicked his tongue, struggling to his feet and ambling over to the record player. He stared down at it for a few seconds, blinking, and sighed when Asmodeus stood, “Let me figure it out,” he murmured, “please.”

Took him a good five minutes, even though he was kicking himself because it should have been intuitive.

He smiled sweetly, then faltered, and tears sprang up in his eyes and he didn’t know why.

Asmodeus held him, and rocked him, and obliged Dean when he asked for to be played again. And again. And again. And then when his tears wouldn’t come anymore and he was lax in Asmodeus’ arms, they changed it out for Abbey Road, and  _ Maxwell’s Silver Hammer _ .

And they played some more chess, and kissed a few more times, and Dean was smiling again, just,

Calmer, now. It had been release. Cathartic.

And then, at some point, time was irrelevant because it was Hell, and an eternal life sentence, Asmodeus froze.

And Dean frowned, “Are you- Asmos? You… good?”

And his friend, his- his Asmodeus, he paled, and looked down from where his eyes had been fixed on the ceiling, and he closed them, for a few seconds.

“Oh, Dean,” He murmured.

Orders from on-high.

_ Bring him. Now. _


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is a story echoing in on itself, until the end of time.

Time away didn’t help. Time integrated, pretending to be human, didn’t help. Answering prayers didn’t help.

Sam… Sam  _ despised _ them. Couldn’t understand why Lucifer didn’t, given the history, could no longer understand them as a whole.

The needless pain and suffering, the rape and murder no matter how many times they intervened, the slow destruction of the natural world.

What were they? Who were they to do this?

And Lucifer would ask,  _ Sam, you’re human, how can you not understand and love and-? _ When the real question he had, hidden away, was,  _ What’s wrong with you? _

And all Sam could reply was,  _ I’m you. _

Lucifer didn’t know what to do with him. Didn’t know how to deal with him, because he was Sam and Sam was him in all the best and worst of ways.

Perfect union. Perfect sharing.

He had never better understood just why he had been thrown into the Cage.

Because it hurt. Something you loved so dearly so slowly falling off the deep end and when it was finally too late, nothing you did helped. There was nothing to be done but either allowing destruction or preventing it.

Lucifer was sure his Father was out there. And he still… hated, loved, feared Him and he never more wanted His counsel than now.

He carded his fingers through his feathers, bright and shining, and closed his eyes. “What about Dean?”

He’d asked, slowly. “What about Dean, Sam, do you hate him too?”

“He’s my brother.” Sam replied quickly, brushing a feather back into alignment and shuddering. “Of course… of course I love him, even though he’s-“ He paused. “He’s not like the rest of them, he’s better. He’s beyond.”

“Mm.” Lucifer shook his head. “You love him, and you’ve gone to see him even less than the other humans,”

“He’s not human,” Sam protested. “He’s not human, he has our grace, Michael’s grace, under his skin. He’s- older than I am.” 

“By four years.” Lucifer confirmed, just in case Sam had let it slip in mind. “But, given that time in Hell goes faster… yeah. Lot older.” He blinked, dull realization striking a chord in his chest.

His, not Sam’s, because he knew Sam thought about that with some measure of pride, that they’d kept this man alive, kept him safe and loved-

Not loved. Not by Lucifer. Not tangibly, by Sam. Lucifer didn’t know the last time he’d peeked in.

“Why don’t we go see him?” Lucifer asked. It wasn’t a question, because when Sam protested- like he’d always protested, that he didn’t feel up to it, that it wasn’t a good day, that they had so many other things they could do…

“We’re going to see your brother.” Lucifer said more firmly. “If you love him, like you say you do, you’re going to see him.” And maybe that would fix things.

“Don’t you love me?”

“Because I love you. I’m doing this  _ because _ I love you, Sam, because-“ I don’t want you to fall into the same trap, because I want to help you, please let me help you. 

Lucifer clenched his jaw, and started walking. Not flying, he felt, perhaps, a little too upset to fly, because if he did and he and Sam got pressed together a little more, eased more grace into soul and soul into grace than there already was, this was a pointless exercise.

Started walking to the same clearing as before, and  _ a day, my lord, please _ echoing through the ether, in their mind, just as soon as Lucifer sent the order down.

“Huh. Guess we’ll have to wait-“

“Not long.”  _ A day in your time. Don’t test our patience, Asmodeus. _

“Not long at all.” And Lucifer sat down on a small, dry path of earth beneath a shellbark hickory tree in what used to be eastern Kansas, and waited. 

—

Asmodeus was at the very least grateful Dean was lucid. Seemed to have his wits about him, for the most part.

Of course, when Asmodeus told him they were going to see Sam his lack of anger really should have clued him in that something was a little wrong.

But, honestly, Asmodeus was too worried to notice much of anything. He got Dean dressed, after a snappy ‘I can do it myself’ that didn’t seem to include the buttons on Dean’s flannel or jeans. He gave him two Motrin, to take, after having been talked down from going straight to morphine (Christ, Asmos, it ain’t that bad, I can suck it up. I get too sleepy on that stuff).

They ate breakfast; waffles and a cinnamon apple compote, whipped cream, dusted with cinnamon and nutmeg and sugar.

Dean smiled and placed himself in Asmodeus’ lap and kissed him, eyes fluttered shut and lips split in a wide smile not all that conducive to the action- 

But a welcome thing, nonetheless, because Asmodeus was smiling too, if a little more hesitantly.

“Alright, that’s enough,” Asmodeus pulled back, shifting to his feet and helping Dean to do the same. “Best we get going.” He glanced at his wrist at an imaginary watch, force of habit, he supposed, before he summoned Dean’s cane and handed it over.

“Going?” Dean echoed, brow creased as he took his cane and immediately shifted it into his hand, putting his weight on it.

“To see Sam.” Asmodeus said slowly, worry spiking in his borrowed heart.

“Sam.” Dean repeated, again, nodding like he knew what that was supposed to mean to him when they both knew he didn’t. It took him a few moments. Sam. His brother. Little Sammy, who killed his other half and abandoned him forever and ever and would never let him die or answer his prayers-

“Now, now- don’t cry. Don’t cry-“ Asmodeus wrapped his arms around Dean, closing his eyes because  _ fuck, couldn’t this have been avoided? Couldn’t they have done this sooner, before he’d- _

Dean had even started forgetting his own name, sometimes, when he was coming down from pain and got this broken, far away look and all of Asmodeus’ answers to ‘who am I’ and ‘where are we’ weren’t enough to pull him out of it.

“It’ll be alright. We can fix things up, with them. L- they’re an archangel, a god, they can help you put, hm? That’s right.” And Asmodeus was tugging out his pocket handkerchief and wiping Dean’s tears away, soft and tender and nothing a demon should ever have and he was thankful.

So fucking thankful, that he’d gotten to do this and live this and have a purpose in this grand new world,

And he was so fucking incensed that he couldn’t do anything more to help. That it wasn’t fair, and he understood that life wasn’t fair but it shouldn’t have to be that way when your own brother was- ruler of the universe, or whatever LuciferandSam called themselves, titled themselves.

Life should have been more fair to Dean than to anyone else and it just wasn’t.

Asmodeus handed Dean a pair of sunglasses, because Asmodeus knew seeing the sun after so long in Hell would burn. Moreso, probably, than the first time. 

Asmodeus allowed Dean a little more time to cool down, rocked him, murmured sweet nothings and platitudes and promises, and then they were gone.

—

It was quiet, save for the birdsong. Sam and Lucifer didn’t breathe. They didn’t need to, why should they? It was uncomfortable, even, at times. Sam had grown used to not needing it and really wouldn’t have it any other way.

And then there was Asmodeus, and Dean. And they both did. And both of their hearts were thundering in their chests at a steady, normal rate, as opposed to Sam and Lucifer’s once every few minutes, just for some movement and regulation.

Sam tilted his head to the side. Because, once again, the demon was too close, but that was only the half of it.

Because Dean was soft. Changed. Less broad in the shoulders, a bit scrawnier so far as muscles went and- soft. Walking with a cane. Brow knit and green eyes…

None of that spark. None of that fire. Sam’s upper lip curled before he managed a smile. “Dean.” He greeted coolly.

Dean blinked, staring down at Sam and Lucifer, where they sat. And then he leaned in against Asmodeus, murmured softly-

They could hear, of course. They could hear everything.

And Dean’s question had Sam’s nostrils flaring, and Asmodeus’ trying to be quiet, ‘that’s your brother, Dean’, had him angry.

Because how dare Dean?

After everything Sam had done for him?

“You don’t know my name?” He demanded, and Dean shrank back a few steps. “I’m sorry, Sammy, I keep- I k-k- huh, keep forgetting things.”

Sam’s brother didn’t talk with a stutter. He was  _ supposed  _ to be getting better.

Hadn’t Sam told him to stop calling him that?

“And apparently you’re still forgetting. It’s  _ Sam _ .” He stood, slowly walking over. When Asmodeus didn’t shrink back his eyes flashed red and- oh, that did the trick.

Dean didn’t cower, though. There he was. He was… glaring. Not happy to see him, anger just as quickly remembered as his brother’s name was forgotten and how dare he?

But he didn’t say anything. Just waited. Didn’t wrap his arms around his brother until his brother’s hand was at his throat and then his hands were all  _ over _ , clutching and hitting weakly at his arm as the cane fell to the ground with a hard thump.

“Lucifer,” Asmodeus tried. “It’s not- his fault, it’s mine, I can’t-“

“I’m not Lucifer.” Sam reminded, all sing-song about it, “And I’ll make sure you know your shortcomings. I’ll make sure we go through each and every single one of them, you… I’d call you an insect if I didn’t appreciate them so much, Asmodeus. I’m talking to my brother.  _ Butt out of it. _ ” Sam let go of Dean’s throat and chuckled, shaking his head and wiping his hands on his suit. “You’ve gotten rusty, Dean. Should have been able to fight your way out of that.” 

And then he grinned, like a puppy, eyes lighting up. “It’s so good to see you.” A proper embrace, then, lifting Dean up into his arms and ignoring the soft grunt of pain his brother gave, the slurred “S’mmy,” because some things could be forgiven.

Some things could be forgotten. They’d work through it, they’d-

“S’mmy, please, I wanna-“

“What do you want, Dean?” He was talking, he was coherent, Sam would be able to reach into his mind and fix everything and they’d be happy and maybe Dean would forget he was ever in pain. “You’ll have the world at a word, big brother, what do you want?”

“Let me go.” Dean croaked. “It hurts, it hurts, too long. It’s been too long, man.” He whispered, tears beading in his eyes.

“Too long? It’s been no time at all. I don’t understand.”

“I barely- barely remember, all I’ve got’s Hell and what Asmos reminds me of, I didn’t remember your face, I don’t-“

“Well-“ Sam bit out, cutting Dean off, brow creased and jaw set. “You don’t need to worry about that, because I’m right here. I’ll remind you. You don’t need a  _ demon _ , all he was- was a solution. I couldn’t bear to see you in pain, Dean, but now that you’re better-“

“I’m not better. He’s not a solution, I do need to worry about it, I wanna stop forgetting, I love him. I can’t say the same about you.” Dean finally grit out, staring up at his brother.

And then Sam’s face went blank. 

“Well.” He scoffed, like he couldn’t believe it, like this was an impossibility and an insult he didn’t deserve, never deserved, “What’s the point, then?”

And then he was elbow-deep in Dean.

Not in his soul.

In Dean, blood and flesh and bone, and blood was bubbling up from between those soft lips and the demon, the little cockroach, was yelling something, and Lucifer was yelling something in their mind, and Sam couldn’t bring himself to care.

Because what was the point? So much effort and no return.

If Dean didn’t want to put any effort in himself, Sam may as well oblige him. Ungrateful little bastard. 

He clenched fingers, cold as ice, sparking with his grace, their grace, Lucifer’s grace, around Dean’s heart.

It didn’t beat for him. What was the point?

He felt something tearing away at his own insides, he felt blood in his mouth and  _ Sam, stop, not like this, _

And it was his body, his arm, Lucifer didn’t have any right to be yanking it out of Dean but Sam had every right to take the traitor heart with him and watched Dean let out a short, choked, wet howl and his eyes dull and well,

Wasn’t that anticlimactic? What was the point?

Sam blinked rapidly. Something was fading and it wasn’t Dean, he was already faded, it was, it was,

He stepped back, brow creasing, “Lucifer?” There was blood on his lips and it wasn’t Dean’s.

He coughed, panting, something was slipping away and he couldn’t hold on and it-

Something was him. “Luc’fer?”

Lucifer couldn’t bring himself to words. Sinking the claws of his grace into the soul bound to it was excruciating.

_ I love you, I love you, I’m sorry I had to corrupt you, I’m sorry we were together so fully, I’m sorry I burn everything I touch, it’s better to live in Heaven than to die and burn like this, I promise you. _

Lucifer was alone in his body. His face was wet with tears, his arm sticky with blood. Dean’s heart tumbled out of his grip and to the ground and his breath hitched.

Hand on his shoulder.

Lucifer closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Asmodeus looked down at the body. “He wanted…” Lucifer realized Asmodeus must have been crying. Voice rasped and broken to all hell, croaked out.

How long had he just been standing there?

“Sam is…”

“I figured. Are you-“

“No.”

Asmodeus nodded. “I’m sorry.”

Lucifer swallowed. “You’re… relieved of your post. Care and keeping of Dean Winchester, and princehood. Feel free to- to Earth. Whatever you want.”

Asmodeus didn’t thank him. Lucifer figured that made sense, because that gift, that was so much less than what was earned or deserved but Lucifer didn’t have anything else to give. And then he was gone.


	12. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Passing the buck.

There were footsteps crunching on the snow behind him. Which was odd, given that there weren’t any human settlements for thousands of miles.

And the fact that whoever was making those steps was wearing sneakers.

Lucifer sighed, shoulders dropping, wings drooping as he gazed out over the mountain, into the dawn. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Gingerly lowered to sit beside the archangel, hands on His knees.

Lucifer finally turned to look, lips quirking up in the ghost of a ghost of a smile. “Was this…”

“What I wanted?” He let out a long sigh, shaking His head. “No. No, I didn’t plan this out. Not the parallels I wanted to make, but-“ He shook His head again. “We can talk about that later.”

Lucifer huffed, looking back at the crest of the rising sun. “I-“

“I know it hurts. And I’m sorry, that-“

“I get it.” Lucifer finished, slumping. His throat worked and his lower lip quivered. “I finally get it. And I’m sorry.”

“...I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Me neither. Is he-?”

“Heaven? Yeah. Yeah, Dean’s… Dean’s there too.”

“Together?” Lucifer asked.

“Maybe someday. Not yet.” He was silent, a few moments. “I think you made something beautiful. Here. New… fauna, flora, continents, new rules. Huh, new Me. How are you liking it?”

Lucifer smiled sadly. “It’s a lot. It hurts. Sometimes- I can still feel him. It’s his body, his sense memory. But this…”

“Eases it. Try not to get too… do what I did.”

Lucifer snorted. “You were very good at teaching what not to do, by example. I’ll figure it out.”

“I know. It’s your world, I’m just living in it.”

“If I want to talk-“

“Just ask. I’ll be there.”

Lucifer nodded. “Dad…”

“I can’t tell you if you’re doing the right thing. I don’t know.” He rested lightly against Lucifer’s side.

“I get that. ...Thank you. I love you.” And Lucifer was alone, looking out at the dawn, tears in his eyes and smile on his face.

He’d figure it out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bruh,,, it’s- such a fun little journey, I hope you enjoyed and liked it as much as I liked writing it. I’m cryingg

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you like it!! I had a bunch of fun writing, would love to know what you think :)


End file.
